After years of training at the Barbizon Academy, hundreds of sessions with studio photographers, professional trainers and Hollywood-caliber cosmetology I still don’t take a decent photograph. Whereas a random snap I took of some French dude at last year’s All Souls Procession in Tucson makes him look like a star! A star I tell you!!!

Please excuse Gregor Samsa’s absence for the past three or four days. Gregor was on a cultural expedition to Bisbee, Arizonaand Cananea, Sonora . I felt this life experience was just as important to his growth as a young man as would be spending the last three days with his internet buddies.

Unfortunately, Gregor also managed to catch a “cold” in Cananea, poor dear is suffering from a bad headache, nausea, the spins and dehydration. So he may be gone one more day. Again, I apologize for his absence.

Halloween is the birthday of two of Yosef’s children, Yobags 1 and 2 and Yobaggette and Yobagatina! Happy Halloween kiddos! All you cobags, too! If you have a good costume you get some of this:If your costume sucks or isn’t scary enough, this cat will infiltrate your home and use your toothbrush. This pic is from a raid on The Editors. Eat it cobaggos! Dress up in comments! I wonder what kind of candy Freedom Camp, Republic of Dogs, Well Rounded Nerds, Pandagon, and Sadly, No! will be giving out?????

1. Unzip-Cinerama
David Gedge’s now defunct follow-up to The Wedding Present, Cinerama, which he dissolved after breaking up with his girlfriend who was in the band, spin tales of lust, failure, longing, disappointment, you know the usual over a retro sound (some horns the occassional xylophone, tasteful guitar). Like Clientele, without the haze, just the cigarette smoke of the morning after the party, where reality becomes painfully clear. As you look over and see the person you either don’t like or know you failed to please lying next to you (this really describes most of their songs, not necessarily this one). From the delightfully titled Disco Volante. 7/10

2. I Go with Him-Nina Nastasia
She fits in that stripped down country-esque American vein that Will Oldham (don’t really know who that is-Bonnie Prince Billy?) and Iron and Wine fall into. From The Blackened Air. 7/10

3. Jenny Ondioline-Stereolab
Somehow I only heard the extra cocktail-y Stereolab the first time around and not the minimalist, totally awesome 60’s space-trip Stereolab. This is the latter, from their first (?) Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements. Oh, this one’s 18 minutes and feels more like 4 songs. And will either bore you or transfix you. You’ll know by the score what I’ll think of your taste if you say the former. Has a very My Bloody Valentine intro. 8/10

4. Lucky Man-The Verve
Kiss off. If the delightful Jedmunds had his music head screwed on straight, he’d worship this song at least, and not Wonderwall, that is if the category was self-important English mid-90’s stadium rock. Just admit that you were happy when this video actually came on MTV. Of course, you know that that was two in the morning so I’m talking to a select few of our reading audience. The cobags that didn’t have Sega, mind you. (a guilty 8/10)

5. Judge Dredd in Court-Derrick Morgan
From the pre-reggae music style I don’t remember the name of signified by the Trojan Records Rude Boy Box. Has some stompy piano where you can feel the proto-reggae beat. A pretty funny song. I heard this on the KEXP world music show a couple of years ago. I also discovered my fave Kenyan music band (Maroon Commandos) on that show. Of course the guy was playing some impossible to find vinyl so I stopped listening to that show. 8/10

6. Transfiguration #1-M. Ward
A pleasant instrumental from an album I don’t really listen to. On the country side, but the background of crickets chirping always reminds me of a Yo La Tengo song. Which one? I don’t know. Also Jamie R. NR

7. Got Glint?-Chemical Brothers
Nice music…if you’re in the bathroom of some lame club but have the feeling you might not be going home along that night, but if you’re not in that situation, or maybe riding up some space elevator to some Draconian Orgy with Princess Ardala or teh l4m3 dressed as Princess Ardala (readers choice), then this song is blah. 3/10

8. Worst Thing-Sebadoh
We have already discussed the two Sebadohs. The thoughtful Lou Barlown down- or midtempo songs, and the other ones. The ratios of those songs on the albums are usually 1:5, and the good ones are always the radio tracks. This is not a good one. 1/10

9. Have A Day/Celebratory-The Polyphonic Spree
These guys are either a sick joke or really scary. I haven’t heard their new one. This is from their first. Some people really lament the passing of Tripping Daisy whose frontman Tim Delaughter birthed this saccharine cult. 20-some odd robe-clad full orchestra/chorale sounding craziness. 6/10

10. Sub-Culture-New Order
I’m always in between on this one. I feel like I don’t like it (NME calls them godlike geniuses, I call them hit and miss). Barn’s flat on this one. The drum beats feel even more like paint by numbers, but I seem to remember a bunch of different mixes. Maybe this is the not good one. I usually listen though for the “what do I get out of this?/I always try/I always miss” part. 5/10

11. Bonus not on my computer but I feel like listening to it “Ray Ray Rain” by Bettie Serveert from Lamprey. Pitchfork crapped on their latest, but thank god Pitchfork wasted real estate this week on Destiny’s Child’s Greatest Hits. Cobags.

–>So Pinko Punko and Geenie Cola were representing at a ‘Weenie party as Manny “Trade Me” R. and Vampire “Dame Edna” Girl, and while Geenie C. was the babest chica there, there was temptation attempted. Was it the cute girl in the pantsless (!!) costume (don’t ask)? No. It was the girl dressed as BACON. Foul temptatrix! My powers were strong, though, as I had previously had my fill of Chex mix and fun size kit-kats. Take Fives have not made the big time of Costco-size candy bags– yet.

–>Why are you so delicious? Secondly, why have you gone to the trouble of marinating yourself for TEN WHOLE HOURS? What are the ulterior motives of your minimum five different spices? What business do you have slow cooking for over four hours? What designs do you have on me, and why have I so been ensnared? These are the mysteries of pork.

To let you know, nerfarious yet scrumptious pork, I love googlybear before you, that cannot be changed, appearances to the contrary.

–>Since our readers do not care how illiterate we really are, we delegate the meme to Gregor, because we are actually interested in his answers, also because we froze like a deer in headlights when we tried to think of answers. We will answer about the one book that took us awhile to get into: Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. It took us a week and a half. Oh, Ada, or Ardor by Nabokov was like a death march. Two books that we have never finished were The Vivisector by Patrick White and The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes. They were both gifts. What is it about us that leads people to think we’d love incredibly massive stream-of-consciousness or existential epics? We have also received Pynchon’s Mason and Dixon as a gift, we didn’t even start that one.

–>Two things, Norbiz, whom we love, places a Tony Lama wrong for once (probably sad about the Astros, and we feel for him). He rightly talks about terms he can do without, and lots of them are “bloggy”, and of course we agree, but he could have added one more thing on his list and that one thing is every single ****ing thing that has to do with the internet. I’m just feeling like the cool kids are two seconds from doing a backlasho on everything they have been pimping for the last whenever. Anyway, we report, you decide.

Secondly, we make a bold predictione. We predict a Checkers speech.No, sillies, a Checkers speech.Except, this time, we expect VP Stick “Dick Cheney” Painey to give it and in doing so conveniently have a sympathy-generating stroke. Three Bulls! does not prognosticate because always in motion is the future. We just lay it out for all to see. Also, can everyone that reads this also go here? It is the fafblog, and I would like to attract the attention of Giblets. Even though this will invariably lead to our vaporization via Gibletsian deathray, I would like to challenge Giblets to his version of the Checkers speech. While Giblets is defiant, Giblets knows when to curry favor with the androids that live under the volcano.

Pardon merci, je suis le grande zombie; I’m just not human tonight OK, if you’re new to these parts, I would suggest you go read this. The next question, of course, is did the latest Mekons show live up to, or exceed, the rambunctious character of that one? Oh my yes, it did indeed. And […]